If Paul Downton, Ashley Giles and Alastair Cook do not explain their decision
it is difficult not to see England's best player as anything other than a
scapegoat

The worst Ashes tour of all has ended with England dumping their best cricketer. Perhaps a disastrous trip to Australia needed one last lurch into the bizarre. If Kevin Pietersen really was Problem No1 once Andy Flower resigned as team director, justice demands that we hear a detailed explanation for his expulsion.

Across the shires as the news began to creep out, there was a remarkable polarity of responses, from those who regard ‘KP’ as a divisive empire builder and terminal loner to the pragmatists who simply feel sick about never seeing him again in England colours. Plenty said they watched Alastair Cook’s bedraggled team just to see Pietersen wave the mighty willow. If this was stretching a point in his defence, there is no denying the awkwardness of this moment. To consign the great entertainer to the wilderness when England are so low is a decision that flies in the face of sporting reality, however strong the case against him.

And how strong is it? Assuming Pietersen has not been bombed for past sins (messaging South African players, especially), or on a totting-up process, we need to know how and when he violated team discipline in Australia. Plenty of witnesses say he was semi-detached at times. Geoff Boycott’s comment about him grazing like a cow in a remote meadow while all around him burned struck a lyrical note.

But was he late for team meetings? Was he rude to the captain or the coaching staff? Was his attitude to the warm-up games as high-handed as some allege? With England now stripped of their only bar-clearing talent these questions assume an almost judicial weight, because no player, however self-absorbed or annoying, should lose his international career on the back of generalised dislike in the camp.

This has not been handled well, whatever the merits of starting again without a batsman who can win Tests on his own. First, Flower – crushed 5-0 in Ashes series, let us not forget – appeared to hitch his future to the question of whether Pietersen stayed: a novel example of a beaten coach laying down the terms by which he might stay on. Flower was in no position to be calling the shots on Pietersen before Paul Downton’s review had properly started, never mind finished.

Downton, we can be sure, was not looking to be dictated to, even by a coach with Flower’s fine record prior to the tour of woe. But the singling out of Pietersen as a major “issue” for the future immediately set the tone for the discussion. It also allowed the myriad faults and failures on the tour to be concealed behind a giant celebrity sideshow. It was easy to detect a diversionary tactic by some in the England camp: ‘We need to talk about Kevin, and nothing else.’

Dramatic action was needed. We can all agree on that. But there is an uncomfortable sense that a posse rode after Pietersen, driven by all the old grudges. His tendency to make enemies is by now fully understood. He is no better suited to team-thinking than Tiger Woods is to Ryder Cup golf. He is an outsider by background and temperament. Part of his motivation (and his happiness) comes from defining himself against people, not with them, and he has never accepted the role of gifted nuisance who just needed to be whipped into line.

Cook’s decision to welcome him back into the camp probably feels like an error now to the England captain as he tries to strengthen his own position. To Cook, Pietersen was probably a gamble he no longer wished to take. In that sense you can see why those whose responsibility it is to lead England out of this mess wanted to dispense with the possibility of future distractions. Take the hit now, they probably thought, and let the debate rage in these empty winter months. They must know, though, that Pietersen’s eviction will be raised again the next time England are 140 all-out.

The other anomaly here is that England have zapped their best player before the new coach has been appointed, thus taking the decision out of his hands. Others will say Pietersen should have been managed better, not forced out, and that England have effectively indicated their inability to deal with idiosyncratic careers.

This is a dark day for English cricket and we need to know why it happened. If the reasons are good, so be it. As for Pietersen himself, as Philip Roth once observed: “It’s no picnic up there in the egosphere.”